Problem 42. Find the alphabetic word product

If the input string s is a word like 'hello', then the output word product p is a number based on the correspondence a=1, b=2, ... z=26. Assume the input will be a single word, although it may mixed case. Note that A=a=1 and B=b=2.

So

s = 'hello'

means

p = 8 * 5 * 12 * 12 * 15 = 86400

Bonus question: How close can you get to a word product of one million?

For the bonus question, we can rule out any number that has a prime factor greater than 26 (z). The product found by Jason Friedman is the first number greater than 10^6 that does not have such a prime factor. The product 999856 is the largest number less than 10^6 to be part of a possible solution.